https://archive.gamehistory.org/
The VGHF Digital Archive is the portal for our digitally preserved content. You can directly access our digital collections and search through the full text of documents, magazines, transcripts, and more.
This library is a permanent work in progress. Not all materials are currently cataloged or digitized, and our library system may change in the future.
Hell yeah, this is great stuff. This must be largely the work of Phil Salvador, the librarian they hired a year or two back. Cool guy. From brief poking around, this looks to be on par with digital collections access portals run by other library/archives/museum institutions.
Here’s a particularly entertaining magazine they’ve digitized:
https://archive.gamehistory.org/folder/cab8c52f-ac62-4a70-90f0-70a6a51b9d3e?sortField=date&sortDir=asc
Can’t wait to have a multimedia deep-dive later! Familiar with Phil from his writing at The Obscuritory. Seems like a genuinely passionate guy, excited to see him putting that same passion towards something like this!
oh man we should make a thread for digging through this
oh man i made a thread for digging through this
OK we didn’t get that buuut we did get an office tour vid which is cool.
https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/39fd5567-7449-4c50-917e-c2744616b760
having fun going thru concept proposal documents and realising how big a part “printing out internet pages to use as reference material” was back then. like there’s a phantasmagoria 3 pitch which is 90% just printed webpages incl full text walkthroughs of phantas 1 and 2 and also 9: The Last Resort all from people’s fansites.
the collection of pitch materials for a todd mcfarlene game called “Bounty Hunter” incl a bunch of printed and annotated puff profiles about todd himself (or “you (Toddster)” as he’s described in one of the enclosed communications). it also has the famously combative comics journal interview in there
froogle… a name i havent heard in quite some time. i also like that the list of random notes for the game and character
really funny that this bit is included in a videogame production document specifically
genuinely impressed by how many of these industry documents seem like things i would have written to feel important when i was 12. an industry of dreams… also, plock.
the next sentence below this announces the “possibilities are endless” and that after waking up tied to the ground by tiny men, “…you know the rest”. do i?? has there ever been a gullivers island tie-in that included the horses
Love the vaguely hostile tone running throughout these. “Does it matter?” I dunno man, you’re the one pitching me on this House game… Also fascinated by the casual mention of Plok and Pandemonium in the same breath as Mario and Sonic hahaha
I think a lot of early games industry had people who wanted to exude this rockstar energy but were also hugely insecure
Always useful to be reminded that the people who end up in the drivers seats of these huge properties and franchises aren’t any smarter than the rest of us
the house game sounds like it was destined for 3do. just like, a very 3do concept, as it’s described in those images
1994-5 there was a very brief window where Pandemonium was that big.
Saw something similar of the “forgotten” fighting game Battle Arena Toshinden. I got real upset and mad because BAT was huge at the time but just got swept aside by history because it isn’t very good.
i had relatives that didn’t play games, but they loved pandemonium.
and in the very early days of the playstation and saturn, the weird mesh effect on the saturn version of ellis’ outifit compared to the transparency of the ps1’s rendition was a talking point in some circles
Wondering if the guy who pitched this thing knows about Welcome House and if he feels vindicated or bitter…
Omg you just sparked memories of Gamefan spreads exhaustively covering this, what a time to be alive
